Can You Guess What Africans Like to Tweet About Most?

The most discussed topic by Africans on Twitter? Soccer, according to an analysis of African tweets by a British media consultancy.

Portland Communications Ltd. monitored tweets across the 20 biggest cities in Africa for the last three months of 2013. The five most active tweeting cities were all in South Africa and Egypt, with Johannesburg leading the group with 344,215 tweets during the period.

Nairobi, Kenya, led East Africa and Accra, Ghana, led West Africa.

This was the second Twitter snapshot by Portland. In 2012, the company looked at overall tweet volume on the African continent. This time, the company tried to look more at how Africans use Twitter.

With the South Africans leading the way, their desire to talk about soccer matches and teams shined through. Soccer was more discussed than any other topic, including the Death of Nelson Mandela, Portland said. The most mentioned soccer team was Johannesburg’s Orlando Pirates (#BlackisBack, #PrayForOrlandPirates, #OperationFillOrlandoStadium).

Portland also looked at what days Africans are most active on Twitter (Tuesdays and Fridays) and what languages they tweet in (mostly English) and displayed the results in a fun infographic and map that shows the activity over a 24-hour period.

And while Nelson Mandela’s death took a backseat to sports in the overall picture, Dec. 5 — the day of his death — saw the highest volume of tweets in Africa during the entire three-month period.

“It was the most discussed single event,” said Matt Gould, a senior account manager at Portland.